New adventures on the river Wye
This year I decided to join a local club on the river Wye to try and maximise my time there. When I'm guiding I don't tend to fish so I do spend little time actually fishing there. My intention now is to guide one day and spend another day there myself trying to find some good stretches and swims. My aim →
Tench Fishers Fish-in on Bradleys
Well it’s been hectic over the last couple of weeks. Some river fishing some fish spotting and a Tench Fishers fish-in. I had a walk around a beautiful little lake to take a look at the water lilies. They are stunning this year again. As I walk around the lake there was this common carp that followed from swim to swim. I →
Big perch and some nice tench
I said in my previous blog that for me the fishing hasn’t given me too many large tench. Well I always say large tench need to be over 8lbs. I headed to one of the lakes around South Cerney for another try to catch some of the huge tench that swim in it’s waters. I set the alarm for 3.30am hoping →
Reflections of the last 6 weeks and great tench catches
Sometimes you need to reflect on what has happened over the last 6 weeks or so. The reason behind this is that basically I have personally been having a nightmare on the fishing front. I had another poor session fishing the lake at South Cerney. The weather had been kind with little wind but plenty of cloud. I started in one →
Back to a nice camping holiday. John catches some great Tench though.
Here I was again with Graham fishing Horseshoe again. It was to be his first time on there this year. John had been up there for a few days before and had caught a few tench but nothing too large. In fact he seemed to be in the nursery area and had a few from 1-2lbs. I arrived early in the →
20 tench in 12hours to 8lbs 4oz
So last week was a bit of a camping holiday on a South Cerney lake. My mate Graham had been there the previous 24hrs and all he had to show was a possible lost carp at 9.15pm. So I arrived and fished close in a swim that would cover a large area with an upward slope of gravel just to the →
Paul and Tom tenching on Horseshoe
Had a great few days with Tom and Paul guiding on Horseshoe lake last week. They had contacted me back in late October to book a tench session in early spring. Paul comes from Ireland and Tom lives in south London. Each year they join together for a week fishing and wanted me to guide them on tench fishing. I decided on →
Now I’ve found the bream they are spawning!
There I was fishing the same swim again from where I caught the double last week. What a surprise! I had fished the wrong swim for 4 nights. It was unbelievable that it used to produce on a regular basis in the past. I won't dwell on this and move on. Dan and I had spotted a great gravel spot a →
Bream fishing and at last a double figure fish.
Here I was driving up to the swim for the 5th and 6th night bream fishing. I hadn’t blanked on the previous visits however I couldn’t count tench as a result. The weather has been very warm at about 15c during the day and the water temperature had risen 2c to 14.5c. Vince was bringing up the boat so that I →
Second session after the big bream
So another week passes by and it's a time for bream again. Tuesday's jobs completed by noon and the car is loaded up and off I go to the bream lake. First though I pick up some pellets for ground bait via Hinders in Swindon. The weather had been very good with temperatures being 14c for the day and down to →
1st session ever fishing for big bream
I had been told of these double figure bream that can be found in a large lake in Oxfordshire by a few friends. They had been fishing there for a few years and had caught some good fish. They had invited me to fish on several occasions but somehow I was always fishing for tench and didn’t have time. Because the tench fishing →
Cape Verde and so much fun with fishing.
Towards the end January the rivers were still flooded and the decision needed to be made regarding a holiday. Now I’m due to be bream fishing on the 1st April on a new lake near Oxford and the rivers just didn’t seem to be coming good. So I decided two weeks 12th to the 26th March would be about right →
At last the river levels come good as does the fishing
The violent storms of the winter have finally passed leaving behind damage to the countryside in terms of many uprooted trees. In one village in Somerset people were finally able to leave by car with the previous time being 64 day before. Staggering! There has been plenty of fishing on the river at last with 6 chub being caught on most →
Archie’s birthday present and a good few pike
Archie had been given a days guiding with me as a birthday present. He had wanted to do some pike fishing. Now his birthday is in December and we had made a few arrangements to fish only for the river conditions to be in flood. Well there is a surprise. Well eventually arranged to meet on Monday just after half term →
Literally so much water has passed under the bridge
Believe it or not I have been fishing however not with any great enthusiasm as the rivers have been high even the K&A canal has been in full flow like a river. I have caught a few perch drop shot fishing but nothing too large. I have now written off the H.Avon for the season. Everytime the Stour drops down along →
A suprise 26lb pike on drop shotting
I’m not saying anything about the rivers nothing seems to change. I do feel really sorry for the guys on the Somerset Levels. I’m not sure what the cause is of the flooding (other than rain)I suspect it is probably several factors of which dredging is one. For sure the one factor that is behind actions that have not been →
Every body is doing it…..Drop shotting
Most anglers will have noticed over the last 18months or so that some huge perch and catches have been made using this method. No only with perch but with pike too. I'm not going to go over the method too closely as there are many experts who are much better explaining this than me. The reason behind this is that I →
Back on the river roach fishing after 5 years and a good roach and Paul gets a big perch too.
It seems to me that every three days we have a low weather front coming from the Atlantic and dumping torrents of rain in south England. Once the river levels start to drop another low arrives to top things up again. This has been going on for about 6 weeks now. The H.Avon and D.Stour have been over their banks several →
18 perch this time to 2lbs 13oz
Here we go again on the lakes searching for those elusive large perch. Many people are complaining about the lack of perch showing on the lakes I fish. However up and down the country you can see some huge specimens being caught and a fair number to the drop shot method. This time my mate John wanted to join me for →
Desperate for the rivers to come good again.
So here we are and I have lake fever. The rivers are just like lakes and nothing improves my mood. I should be fishing the rivers now for the big chub and barbel, however most of the southern rivers have reached the highest they have ever been. I should have been drop shot fishing a few lakes and canals but the →
Rivers still flooded and more perching
Earlier in the week I managed to visit the river Kennet. I had talked to a mate Paul who suggested that it would be perfect for barbel and chub with the temperature and colour of the river. So Tuesday I headed up to the Kennet after checking the levels on the EA site for the stretch I was going to →
First session 2014 perching
Had a terrible time fishing on Friday, heavest hail storm I have ever witnessed. The hail was over 10mm and locally up to 20mm. Plenty of carp and tench. An eel of 3lbs last cast and then I broke my landing net. I'm not going to write too much here. Sometimes you can have a "mare" and this was one of →
Happy New Year welcome to my 2014 blog and a photo review of 2013
Happy New Year to you all. I thought that my first post would reflect back on last year with a few photo's of good fish caught. Its time also to start thinking about targets for this year. Personally I would still like to bank a 7lb chub from the H.Avon as I've had quite a number from the D.Stour. When the →
December 30th on a wet and very windy days perching
I was supposed to be piking with Trevor and Archie today on the upper Bristol Avon however the weather forecast was for more wind and rain. So with the river being high any further rain would increase the height and colour very quickly. So as it was a birthday present for Archie we decided to postpone it until the river →